On Saturday, the Boston Bruins announced that defenseman Dennis Seidenberg will miss the remainder of the 2013 season with a torn ACL and PCL.

Seidenberg suffered the injury when he got crossed up with Senators foward Coray Conacher behind the Boston net. He immediately had to leave the game and did not return.

The recovery is expected to take anywhere from six to eight months, and the Bruins will place Seidenberg on season-ending IR in order to call up replacements to the roster. Early in the season, Seidenberg signed a four-year $16 million dollar contract that will keep him in a Boston uniform through the end of the 2017-2018 season.

Up to this point in the season, the veteran blue-liner had played in 34 of the 38 Bruins' games this season. Along with Zdeno Chara, Seidenberg is most experienced player on a unit that has been the Bruins' strength over the past few years.

Seidenberg's absence will leave the Bruins short yet another player on their active roster. So far this season, Adam McQuaid (groin), Louis Eriksson (concussions), and Chris Kelly (ankle), have all missed significant time with their various ailments. Throw in the fact that fourth liner Shawn Thornton is currently serving a 15-game suspension (for beating Brooks Orpik to the ice), and it is simply amazing that Boston currently sits in first place in the Atlantic division.

Along with the vets, head coach Claude Julien has had to rely on a mixture of talented young players Torey Krug, Dougie Hamilton, Hamilton to go along with AHL call ups such as Kevan Miller, Zach Trotman, and David Warsofsky.

The young defensemen have played well, but the absence of Seidenberg is a critical loss for a team that is seeking to return to the Stanley Cup Finals for the second straight season. With the departure of Andrew Ferrence in the summer as a free-agent and the loss of Seidenberg, the Bruins are going to need to Chara and Johnny Boychuck to log even more minutes.

Under general manager Peter Chiarelli the Bruins have proved that they have a tremendous amount of depth throughout the organization, and now the team is going to need it more than ever.